The Most Amazing Thing About Trees
Hope this was worth the wait! So many people helped with this video: Prof John Sperry, Hank Green, Henry Reich, CGP Grey, Prof Poliakoff, my mum filmed for me in beautiful Stanley Park and...
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Sometimes the simplest questions have the most amazing answers.Like how can trees be so tall? It's a question that doesn't even seemlike it needs an answer.Trees just are tall. Some of them are over 100 meters.Why should there be a height limit?I'll tell you why. Tress need to transport water from their roots up into their topmostbranches in order to survive. And that is no trivial task.There is a limit to the height that water can be sucked up a tube - it's 10 meters.If you suck on a long vertical straw, the water will go no higher than 10 meters. Atthis point there will be a perfect vacuum at the top of the straw and the water willstart to boil spontaneously. For a tree to raise water 100 meters, it would have to createa pressure differe...
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Sometimes the simplest questions have the most amazing answers.Like how can trees be so tall? It's a question that doesn't even seemlike it needs an answer.Trees just are tall. Some of them are over 100 meters.Why should there be a height limit?I'll tell you why. Tress need to transport water from their roots up into their topmostbranches in order to survive. And that is no trivial task.There is a limit to the height that water can be sucked up a tube - it's 10 meters.If you suck on a long vertical straw, the water will go no higher than 10 meters. Atthis point there will be a perfect vacuum at the top of the straw and the water willstart to boil spontaneously. For a tree to raise water 100 meters, it would have to createa pressure differe...
